#Nat W. Finston

[dweemeister]

New Orleans (1947)

The city of New Orleans is synonymous with a rich cultural tapestry shaped over centuries. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River, its economic and political influence waned with the spread of railroads and highways. Today, its influences are indigenous American, African, French, Spanish, Creole, Honduran, Vietnamese, and much more. But the city remains an inimitable cultural force. One of the city’s most significant contributions to the world is jazz – a musical genre that, even in the mid-twentieth century, attracted racially-coded disdain.

I must admit that I am instantly suspicious of any film that takes a city’s name as its title. Being not in a sniping mood as I write this sentence, I will not single any certain film out – for now. But to reduce a film title to a city’s name is to heighten expectations that the filmmaker will capture the so-called “soul” of a city (a nearly impossible task). Or perhaps they shall depict a man-made or natural disaster that takes place in that city (how often does a city’s name become shorthand for a mass shooting?). Enter Arthur Lubin’s New Orleans: a quasi-musical that does not have the courage to let the musical numbers guide it. The film stars Louis Armstrong (essentially playing himself) and Billie Holiday (not playing herself in her only credited role in a feature film), in addition to other jazz stalwarts at the time: Woody Herman, drummer Zutty Singleton, clarinetist Barney Bigard, trombonist Kid Ory, guitarist Bud Scott. New Orleans makes the mistake of not having Armstrong and Holiday be the main stars. Instead, the film has a half-baked, predictable romance. For a film title with such enormous implications, New Orleans’ concentration makes no sweeping statements about the eponymous city. Instead, it turns its gaze to jazz’s reputation among high-society white Americans.

It is 1917. The Storyville district of New Orleans is a den of prostitution, drinking, gambling, and – worst of all – jazz. Storyville’s residents are mostly black, but some of its welcome patrons are white. Nick Duquesne (Mexican actor Arturo de Córdova) runs a gambling joint frequented by Mrs. Rutledge Smith (Irene Rich) and classical music conductor/pianist Henry Ferber (Richard Hagerman). Irene avoids the jazz there (one of the regulars is Louis Armstrong and the aforementioned players), but her daughter, Miralee (Dorothy Patrick) – an operatic soprano who has arrived in New Orleans to make her professional classical music debut – is entranced by this radical music. Miralee is also entranced with Nick, against her mother’s wishes. Miralee is staying with her relative when she meets their maid, Endie (Billie Holiday), who surreptitiously plays the piano and sings jazz music when she gets the chance. As you might imagine, Endie’s employers disapprove. The film comes to a head as the U.S. military forcibly shuts down Storyville (evicting hundreds of black residents overnight), Nick leaves New Orleans, and Miralee must contend with her emotions just before she makes her classical music professional debut.

Billie Holiday’s fans might be troubled by the fact she is a maid here, given that she intentionally avoided physically demanding occupations in real life. Her reaction to this casting is unclear, as different reputable sources offer contradictory claims: that she abhorred being cast as a maid (Meg Greene’s Billie Holiday: A Biography), or that she relished the opportunity to be in a motion picture regardless of the role (an interview with music journalist Leonard Feather). So as tough as it may be to see her in a subservient role, Holiday appears to be enjoying herself – especially during the musical numbers she is a part of. She is clearly, other than Louis Armstrong, the most musically accomplished member of the cast. But when her character disappears from the film in the final third, New Orleans heaves due to the hackneyed romance between Nick and Miralee. To toss the one actor making this film worth watching for no sensible reason is a disastrous choice by screenwriters Elliot Paul (1941’s A Woman’s Face, 1945’s Rhapsody in Blue) and Dick Irving Hyland (1947’s Kilroy Was Here).

Even in a film independently released through United Artists (the one major Hollywood studio of Old Hollywood with the least executive interference), she and Armstrong cannot be the central stars. Considering Holiday’s musical talents, one wonders why she never starred in another film. Despite some digging, I could not find the answer. But if any black woman musician could have films centered around her, it would be Holiday. Her contemporaries, Lena Horne and Ethel Waters, could never overcome the terrible beliefs that audiences would not pay to see a film with a black actress in the lead role. But did Holiday – noting how Louis Armstrong also appeared in films – want to make more films? That may be an answer for someone else to uncover.

More than any film of its time that I can recall, New Orleans is overflowing with a disobedient musical energy. When considering musical genres innovated by African-Americans, there is an underground aspect to their initial spread that, at first, appears exclusive. Jazz, R&B, and hip hop have all gone through these motions: a tumultuous, secretive birth; a rebellious adolescence where critics decry the moral fabric of such music; and finally mainstreaming. Jazz in New Orleans lies somewhere within that adolescence. Its troubled reputation is the result of a mixture of musical and racial tensions. New Orleans’ affluent white community, on its surface, disdains jazz and prefers the import that is Western classical music – opinions they express vocally (as an amateur classically-trained musician who learned more about jazz later in life, I can’t stand the gatekeeping behavior exemplified in this film). So any time that jazz music is played in an unorthodox setting – the parlor of the Smith household, an orchestra hall – it feels defiant, dangerous.* These musical-racial dynamics persist in America to this day. To even see a film acknowledge that conflict, however ineloquently, is credit to the screenwriters and director Arthur Lubin understanding aspects about musical popular culture of this time.

But what is New Orleans and New Orleans without music? First sung by Holliday and reprised (one might even say appropriated in the negative sense) multiple times is, “(Do You Know What It Means to Miss) New Orleans”, with music by Louis Alter and lyrics by Edgar De Lange. Louis Armstrong is on his signature trumpet, a phalanx of great jazz instrumentalists play on the flanks, and Billie Holiday’s voice captures the timbre necessary in any song about longing.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans And miss it each night and day? I know I’m not wrong, the feeling’s getting stronger The longer I stay away.

It is a song representative of this film’s failed ambitions as an embodiment of New Orleans’ spirit. But it is also a brilliant showcase for some of the great jazz figures working at this time – including instrumental performances by Woody Herman and his orchestra and a virtuosic performance of “Honky Tonk Train Blues” by pianist Meade “Lux” Lewis. Nevertheless, New Orleans’ most soulful performances always revolve around Armstrong and Holiday singing Alter and De Lange’s original compositions. Other soundtrack highlights include “The Blues are Brewin’” and “Farewell to Storyville”. The former exemplifies Holiday’s timeless appeal, her singing voice’s unornamented pathos that elevates the simplest of lyrics. The latter is the most context-dependent song in the soundtrack and occurs as the U.S. military orders the closure of the speakeasies and gambling joints of Storyville – a swinging elegy without defeatism. New Orleans is at its most enjoyable during these musical numbers, and the film just feels lost whenever Armstrong and Holiday are not present or when any of the supposed leads open their mouths to speak.

That Lubin and the film’s producers do not trust the soundtrack to carry New Orleans indicates an ironic misgiving towards jazz music itself. United Artists’ refusal to reward Armstrong and Holiday star billing over de Córdova and Patrick is probably rooted to then-contemporary reality that movie theaters in the American South refused to show films with black leads. In addition, jazz music – like in this film – was not yet completely in the mainstream. If it appeared in a Hollywood film (and elements of jazz often appeared in mid-century American musicals), it almost always would be presented and popularized by a white performer. This development is not exclusive to jazz, let alone artistic medium. The filmmakers, in New Orleans’ final third, muddle their message through such appropriation. “Cultural appropriation” at its most basic definition is a neutral concept, but the developments in the film’s closing scenes – intentional or otherwise – extend this appropriation by presenting a white person’s presentation of jazz as more acceptable to a general audience than a black person’s.

For New Orleans, it remains obscure in terms of Hollywood musicals, African-American cinema, and within the esteemed United Artists filmography. In the present day, it serves best as an exhibition for some of the most acclaimed jazz musicians and performers working in the 1940s. To those fans of the numerous black jazz performers appearing in the film, New Orleans is a bittersweet reminder of what may have been.

My rating: 6.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

* In one scene in an orchestral concert hall, jazz is played as an encore to a classical music concert. It says volumes that the audience is beside themselves and that all of the members of the orchestra (and Richard Hagerman, playing their conductor) are transfixed.

[detrixsta]

"Hot Voodoo" / "You Little So-and-So" (1932)

Marlene Dietrich with Nat W. Finston & His Paramount Orchestra (from the soundtrack of "Blonde Venus")

"Blonde Venus" is a 1932 American pre-Code film produced for Paramount starring Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, & Cary Grant. Dietrich performs the musical numbers, including the now-obscure "You Little So-and-So" (music and lyrics by Sam Coslow & Leo Robin) & the film’s  infamous "Hot Voodoo" (music by Ralph Rainger, lyrics by Sam Coslow), which is nearly 8 minutes in length and mostly instrumental, featuring jazz trumpet & drums. Dietrich sings the lyrics toward the end of this sequence, which takes place in a nightclub.

This is such a campy song; it's no wonder I love it! It would later be performed in 1975's "The Day of The Locust" by a drag-queen! Vamp it up, kids....

[film-tv101]

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION

WINNER

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

NOMINEES

ALICE ADAMS

RKO Radio

BROADWAY MELODY OF 1936

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

CAPTAIN BLOOD

Cosmopolitan

DAVID COPPERFIELD

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

THE INFORMER

RKO Radio

LES MISERABLES

20th Century

THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER

Paramount

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Warner Bros.

NAUGHTY MARIETTA

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

RUGGLES OF RED GAP

Paramount

TOP HAT

RKO Radio

SHORT SUBJECT (CARTOON)

WINNER

THREE ORPHAN KITTENS

Walt Disney, Producer

NOMINEES

THE CALICO DRAGON

Harman-Ising

WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?

Walt Disney, Producer

SHORT SUBJECT (COMEDY)

WINNER

HOW TO SLEEP

Jack Chertok, Producer

NOMINEES

OH, MY NERVES

Jules White, Producer

TIT FOR TAT

Hal Roach, Producer

DIRECTING

WINNER

THE INFORMER

John Ford

NOMINEES

CAPTAIN BLOOD

Michael Curtiz

THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER

Henry Hathaway

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

Frank Lloyd

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

WINNER

THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER

Clem Beauchamp, Paul Wing

NOMINEES

DAVID COPPERFIELD

Joseph Newman

LES MISERABLES

Eric Stacey

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Sherry Shourds

CINEMATOGRAPHY

WINNER

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Hal Mohr

NOMINEES

BARBARY COAST

Ray June

THE CRUSADES

Victor Milner

LES MISERABLES

Gregg Toland

ACTOR

WINNER

VICTOR MCLAGLEN

The Informer

NOMINEES

CLARK GABLE

Mutiny on the Bounty

CHARLES LAUGHTON

Mutiny on the Bounty

PAUL MUNI

Black Fury

FRANCHOT TONE

Mutiny on the Bounty

ACTRESS

WINNER

BETTE DAVIS

Dangerous

NOMINEES

ELISABETH BERGNER

Escape Me Never

CLAUDETTE COLBERT

Private Worlds

KATHARINE HEPBURN

Alice Adams

MIRIAM HOPKINS

Becky Sharp

MERLE OBERON

The Dark Angel

ART DIRECTION

WINNER

THE DARK ANGEL

Richard Day

NOMINEES

THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER

Hans Dreier, Roland Anderson

TOP HAT

Van Nest Polglase, Carroll Clark

DANCE DIRECTION

WINNER

BROADWAY MELODY OF 1936

"I've Got a Feeling You're Fooling" from "Broadway Melody of 1936"

FOLIES BERGERE

"Straw Hat" from "Folies Bergere"

NOMINEES

GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935

"Lullaby of Broadway" from "Gold Diggers of 1935"

GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935

"The Words Are In My Heart" from "Gold Diggers of 1935"

GO INTO YOUR DANCE

"Latin from Manhattan" from "Go into Your Dance"

BROADWAY HOSTESS

"Playboy from Paree" from "Broadway Hostess"

KING OF BURLESQUE

"Lovely Lady" from "King of Burlesque"

KING OF BURLESQUE

"Too Good To Be True" from "King of Burlesque"

TOP HAT

"Piccolino" from "Top Hat"

TOP HAT

"Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails" from "Top Hat"

BIG BROADCAST OF 1936

"It's the Animal in Me" from "Big Broadcast of 1936"

ALL THE KING'S HORSES

"Viennese Waltz" from "All the King's Horses"

SHE

"Hall of Kings" from "She"

WRITING (ORIGINAL STORY)

WINNER

THE SCOUNDREL

Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur

NOMINEES

BROADWAY MELODY OF 1936

Moss Hart

G-MEN

Gregory Rogers

THE GAY DECEPTION

Don Hartman, Stephen Avery

WRITING (SCREENPLAY)

WINNER

THE INFORMER

Dudley Nichols

NOMINEES

CAPTAIN BLOOD

Casey Robinson

THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER

Screenplay by Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah; Adaptation by Grover Jones, William Slavens McNutt

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, Carey Wilson

MUSIC (SCORING)

WINNER

THE INFORMER

RKO Radio Studio Music Department, Max Steiner, head of department (Score by Max Steiner)

NOMINEES

CAPTAIN BLOOD

Warner Bros.-First National Studio Music Department, Leo Forbstein, head of department (Score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold)

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio Music Department, Nat W. Finston, head of department (Score by Herbert Stothart)

PETER IBBETSON

Paramount Studio Music Department, Irvin Talbot, head of department (Score by Ernst Toch)

MUSIC (SONG)

WINNER

GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935

Lullaby Of Broadway in "Gold Diggers of 1935" Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Al Dubin

NOMINEES

TOP HAT

Cheek To Cheek in "Top Hat" Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin

ROBERTA

Lovely To Look At in "Roberta" Music by Jerome Kern; Lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh